Understanding migration power in international studies

Where and how does power operate in the governance of international migration? Migrants and refugees are increasingly used for strategic purposes in international politics, but scholarship on this matter has yet to engage thoroughly with the central International Relations concept of power. This article draws on the thinking of Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall to propose a well-rounded picture of the multiple forms of power in, through or against migration that are mobilized by states and other international actors. We thus conceptualize migration power across two relational dimensions: the nature of the social relations between the actors involved (interactive or constitutive) and the specificity of such relations (direct or diffuse). This leads us to distinguish between four complementary types of migration power—compulsory, institutional, structural and productive—and to identify the main causal mechanisms through which they operate. We argue that power in international migration governance is diffuse, wielded by a wide range of actors, unevenly spread across its different dimensions, and yet, deeply asymmetrical in its distribution along intersecting axes: namely global North vs South, as well as state vs non-state. Beyond academia, the recognition of this complexity can encourage more reflexivity in policy-making and more sensitivity among practitioners.